Private video surveillance cameras do not simplify the work of law enforcement, but in a sense slow it down - police

There are two segments of video surveillance cameras in Ukraine: those owned by local authorities and private ones. The private segment of cameras does not simplify the work of the police in responding to complaints and crimes, but in a sense slows down the process of collecting information. This was stated by Roman Butko, Head of the Criminal Analysis Department of the National Police of Ukraine, on the air of the Night Watch, according to a correspondent of UNN.

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"For example, there are more than 50 million video surveillance cameras in the United States, more than 5 million in the United Kingdom, more than 5 million in Germany, and more than 1 million in the Netherlands. Even if we take into account London's video surveillance system, it is one of the largest in terms of cities - more than 620 thousand cameras. For example, the London Underground has more than 15 thousand cameras," Butko said.

According to him, there are about 60,000 cameras in Ukraine, of which almost 40,000 are part of various video surveillance systems. The rest are both departmental cameras of the National Police and private cameras that the police have access to or know about.

Mr. Butko noted that video surveillance systems in Ukraine are developing, they exist, and this is not something new.

We can divide video surveillance into two segments: the one that belongs to local authorities, i.e. regional military administrations, communities, cities that build these systems, and the private segment of cameras. If we take the private segment of cameras, it really does not simplify the work of the police in responding to immediate reports of serious, especially serious crimes. This, in a sense, slows down the process of collecting information, because in most cases, the owners of private cameras do not have technical standards

He noted that the owners of private cameras do not know how to transfer the information, how to provide it to the investigator, how to download it, and this whole process delays the solving of the crime itself.

"There is currently no single law that can regulate all these processes, i.e. the functionality of the systems, and most importantly, the information exchange between these systems," Butko said.

He also commented on the problem of video storage time.

"The amount of data. Every person or organization that builds a video surveillance system in a particular place, it proceeds from financial characteristics, and the question arises as to how much video can be stored. It is precisely the regulation that will give a clear understanding of how much video should be stored. In most cases, with regard to the provisions that are currently in place in various systems, it is a minimum of 30 days," Butko said.

Addendum

In January 2024, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reported that a unified video surveillance platform was being created in Ukraine.

In January 2024, journalists of the Schemes project found out that many surveillance cameras in Ukraine transmit information to servers controlled by a Chinese manufacturer. Subsequently, the head of Kyiv's digital transformation and deputy mayor Petro Olenych statedthat Kyiv's surveillance cameras operate in their own closed network.